Google could shutter its Google.cn search engine within weeks after talks with the Chinese government over censorship have stalled, according to a March 13 report in the Financial Times. This latest step comes two months after the search engine in January vowed to stop censoring search results and to possibly exit business in China in total after it detected cyber-attacks from within China aimed at gaining access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists.
Google could shutter its Google.cn search engine within weeks after
talks
with the Chinese government over censorship have stalled, according to a
March
13 report in the
Financial
Times.
Citing a source familiar with Google's position on the matter, the
Times
said the chances of Google closing its Chinese search engine are "99.9
percent,"
with the action mostly a question of when, not if.
This latest step comes two months after the search engine in January
vowed
to stop censoring search results and to possibly exit
business in China
in total after it detected cyber-attacks from within China
aimed at gaining access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that
while talks were ongoing, he
remained
hopeful there would soon be a resolution so that Google
didn't have to leave the country entirely.
Google has about 36 percent of China's
search revenue, according to researcher Analysys International.
Though revenue from Google.cn is marginal in the grand scheme of the
company's business, there are some 400 million Internet users in China
and the opportunities to expand its mobile Web by selling smartphones
based on
the Google Android operating system remain great.
Google has already
delayed
launching Android phones there because of its impasse with
Chinese authorities.
But Li Yizhong, minister for industry and information technology,
said
March 12: "If [Google] takes steps that violate Chinese laws, that
would be unfriendly, that would be irresponsible, and they would have to
bear
the consequences."
However, the Financial Times said Google's senior executives are
"adamant" about ending the censorship.
Hence the reason for its current deadlock with China:
The Communist Chinese government is very serious about its stance on
censorship, tightly controlling the information flow in the country.
The New York Times
said
March 14 that Chinese authorities have warned partners of Google.cn that
they
must comply with censorship laws even if Google does not and that they
must
instantiate backup plans in case Google ceases censoring search results.
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